My husband and I were watching Studio 60 last night (apparently NBC is airing new episodes on Thursday nights?), and a continuing plot point is that the characters Matt and Harriet should be together, with constant flashbacks to their history to help prove the point. The key word here is history.
It’s a common tool in art and life to rely on the past to determine the present, especially regarding relationships. But shouldn’t determining who you are meant to be with be focused more on the future? Having a “history” with someone is a poor measurement on which to base a relationship. Before you indulge in previous good times and kind acts, think: Why are we not together now? (Some may offer the advice, “think of all the bad times and what you hated about him/her,” but this is crap, because all relationships have bad times and annoying habits. I offer instead that you figure out why you couldn’t get past them the first [second, third, etc.] time around. It’s not the bad times that are to blame, it’s the coupling of the people.)
Every situation is relative, and I’m not talking about the growing pains of young love. You two may truly be “meant to be” at a later time, but meant to be occurs in the moment, and it isn’t up to your control, so if a real relationship with the past person occurs again, I guarantee it won’t be based on the past (if it is, be prepared to break up), you’ll be different (if you aren’t, be prepared to break up), and the relationship will be wholly new (if it isn’t—you guessed it—be prepared to break up). It is easy to think, hey, with all this crap it must be love. It's not. History is history for a reason.
Thank God my husband and I didn’t have “history.” We didn’t even know each other when we first kissed, but we knew that from that moment on it would be impossible to live separate lives. I’ve watched Gone with the Wind, I’ve watched The Notebook and Sweet Home Alabama, so how could this guy possibly be the One if we didn’t have a history? We hadn’t played any mind games. We hadn’t used or tested each other. I hadn’t broken his heart just to make sure I could. How could the love of my life be a man I had never ridiculously, incredibly hurt? Pardon my lapse into drama, but I’d rather die than do any of those things to my husband.
So my point, if I even have one, is to say love really isn't, or doesn't have to be, as complicated as Dawson's Creek or Ross and Rachel. As for Matt and Harriet, I think they're in love with being in love but broken up. That's a whole other issue. Hopefully real love comes and saves them.
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2 comments:
I love having history with my husband! We (or more accurately, I) have come a long way, and I am so glad to be able to remember that every once in a while.
Oh goodness now Tim and I have history...but we didn't get together because of it, and it's not why you and Eric got together, right? If so, please feel free to disprove my theory!
As far as prerelationship history, Tim and I have gone through the times in our life we had been in the same place at the same time and had no idea that our future spouse was right there (he was even camping at State Park the weekend YAR camped). So that's a nice history, but we didn't know we had it until we got together.
An example of what I'm talking about is as if I'd gotten back together with The Ex, the boy I'd broken up with, gotten back together with, broken up with, spent drama-filled hours analyzing our relationship with, exchanged long letters with, whose dad calls me "the one who got away," and who'd built me a really pretty and high pedestal. For years (and maybe even still) if you'd done free association with our friends, saying his name would have immediately spawned my name. Etc. John Hughes would make a great movie out of it, and watching it you would have wanted him and I to be together. I rarely cheer for that relationship. That kind of history dooms the future.
I do love friends becoming lovers. I will cheer heartily for that. A history of friendship on which to refer is a much healthier basis...and it's cute, which is always one of the most important factors.
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